Free Republic Has Competition

Fox Nation. Hey, Rupert might as well own that franchise too.

Why Don't You Just Call Yourselves "The Democrat Party"?

Dennis Miller and Bill Kristol think conservatives should start calling themselves "progressives."

Yeah. Great idea. That won't cause any confusion among your dimbulb believers. Go for it.

Cowards

The birth certificate lie sure comes in handy when a chickenhawk wingnut can weasel out of serving his country. Thanks for your loyalty to the USA, Stefan Frederick Cook. What a fucking patriot.

In Wingnut America, Democrats are more evil than al Qaeda.

Playing the Entire Race Deck

Wow. The wingnuts are back and they're crazier than ever.

The Bill Ayres tactic served them so well in 2008. Also, ThinkProgress nails this one right on the cabeza.

The claim that Sotomayor led a terrorist organization apparently refers to her service on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a mainstream civil rights organization. It seems that, in the right-wing mind, a group that protects Latinos from race discrimination is exactly the same as al Qaeda.

And the right-wing mind still looks to Pat Buchanan for winning ideas like this one.

You Nutty Puerto Ricans

All you need to know about Day 3:

Four minutes and seven seconds was all it took for Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to bring up Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment during the second day of questioning. And it would have been sooner if not for political formalities.

The opening gavel of Wednesday's session began at roughly 9:31 A.M. and it was followed by a welcome note and explanation of the day's schedule by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. By 9:35 Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) was speaking. And after dispensing with a line about the infallibility of the Supreme Court, it became abundantly clear where his questions were going.

"So I want to just start with the comments that you made about the wise Latina speech that, by my count, you made at least five times between 1994 and 2003," the Texas Republican said. "You indicated that this was really, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm trying to quote your words, a, quote, failed rhetorical flourish that fell flat. I believe at another time, you said they were, quote, words that don't make sense, closed quote. And another time, I believe you said it was, quote, a bad idea, closed quote. Am I accurately characterizing your thoughts about the use of that phrase that has been talked about so much?"

Sotomayor would stand by the comments she made on Tuesday, that the wise Latina remark was a poorly worded attempt at inspiring fellow immigrants.

"Yeah, we kinda thought you said that yesterday, but it's fun for us to show how utterly clueless we are to this whole thing...especially since this is all we got."

Maddow: Sotomayor Hearings Reveal GOP 's Ethnic Paintbrush

Yeah...kinda makes you want to take a shower after watching Jeff Sessions and his partymates. Their big theme at yesterday's hearings seemed to be "Why can't all you Puerto Rican judges be the same?"

White guys can be really stupid. I can say that because I'm one of 'em.

Auto-Tune the News 6

They just keep getting better.

The Snotty Party

Really, man...I'm not going to take anyone in the GOP seriously anymore. The negative posturing on day one of the Sotomayor hearings, Orrin Hatch on Hardball today still calling it "the Democrat Party," the entire lineup on FOX News, the feigned outrage over Obama not looking at a girl's butt (when their #1 presidential hopeful got nailed for bolting to Argentina to actually get some), and their followers don't like Obama because he speaks too well. WTF?

Nothing but infantile snottiness. Palin can have 'em. Again I say: I'm SO freakin' glad not to be a Republican.

From the Pen of: John Sherffius

But Still No Plan of Their Own

The Republican party has become a collection of world-class infantile bitchers and moaners but they still refuse to offer any helpful suggestions or solutions on the economy. Only cries of how Obama is wrong.

We're still waiting, you guys. Put down your nuks-nuks and say something useful for once in your God-forsaken lives.

Ginsburg Gives Perspective on Sotomayor

I absolutely love this small passage from her New York Times Magazine interview.

Q: What do you think about Judge Sotomayor’s frank remarks that she is a product of affirmative action?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: So am I.

Palin Channels Joe the Plumber

Don't hold your breath waiting for her to choose "right things" candidates. Joe also made the same pledge. All he supported on his stumps was Joe the Plumber.

The Washington Times reports that Palin will quickly jump "back into the national political fray." "I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," Palin said over lunch in her downtown office. "People are so tired of the partisan stuff — even my own son is not a Republican."

Well, there you go. Sarah threw her son into the conversation, not the hateful liberal media. So now that she tossed in that hand grenade, just what party does he belong to? Chances are, like Todd Palin, it's the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party.

But I'm being mean to drag her kid into this.

Frank Rich on Palinism Phase II

Never count out the loud oafish minority.

It’s more likely that she will never get anywhere near the White House, and not just because of her own limitations. The Palinist “real America” is demographically doomed to keep shrinking. But the emotion it represents is disproportionately powerful for its numbers. It’s an anger that Palin enjoyed stoking during her “palling around with terrorists” crusade against Obama on the campaign trail. It’s an anger that’s curdled into self-martyrdom since Inauguration Day.

Its voice can be found in the postings at a Web site maintained by the fans of Mark Levin, the Obama hater who is, at this writing, the No.2 best-selling hardcover nonfiction writer in America. (Glenn Beck is No.1 in paperback nonfiction.) Politico surveyed them last week. “Bottomline, do you know of any way we can remove these idiots before this country goes down the crapper?” wrote one Levin fan. “I WILL HELP!!! Should I buy a gun?” Another called for a new American revolution, promising “there will be blood.”

These are the cries of a constituency that feels disenfranchised — by the powerful and the well-educated who gamed the housing bubble, by a news media it keeps being told is hateful, by the immigrants who have taken some of their jobs, by the African-American who has ended a white monopoly on the White House. Palin is their born avatar. She puts a happy, sexy face on ugly emotions, and she can solidify her followers’ hold on a G.O.P. that has no leaders with the guts or alternative vision to stand up to them or to her.

Wheels Up

The new server has been launched. Thanks for your patience and stuff.

Your Moment of Zen - "1945"

Kseniya Simonova, sand animator. Yes, animator.

Thanks, yk...

They Really Are Babies

Drudge's childish lead story (for the second straight day, by the way) is the picture of Obama allegedly staring at a girl's ass, complete with a dozen links to stories about it and the equally childish headline, "Second Stimulus Package!"

First of all, even Joe Scarborough conceded that the picture is a deception once he saw the video. It was a split-second in time which shows from another angle that Obama wasn't even looking there, but was in fact turning to help the woman behind him down the step. (Video here) Sarkozy, on the other hand...

Secondly, Drudge decided to lower her age to 16 (she was 17 - a junior G8 delegate from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, not a 16-year-old from Rio, as Drudge asserts). Nothing gets the right wing fatasses' blood boiling faster than a scary black man ogling a white girl. Especially a scary...DEMOCRATIC black man.

Finally, even if he was looking there...so the hell what? I sure as hell looked there.

Drudge really wouldn't understand anyway. He hasn't gotten anything right since 1996. Real mature, you dipshits. Goddamn infants.

Anchorage Daily News: Good Riddance, Sarah

Alaska's newspaper of record won't be missing the cut-and-runner.

She continues to say she didn't want to stick around as a lame duck, once she decided not to run for re-election. In the upcoming legislative session, she suggested, she would be a political piñata, as lawmakers bashed on her in hopes of winning the soon-to-be vacated space in the governor's mansion.

That might make sense if Palin were as unpopular as her predecessor. But Palin is still plenty popular with Alaskans, so bashing her would be a strange marketing strategy for a future gubernatorial candidate. She doesn't seem to realize that lame duck status also can be liberating, freeing an official to do what she thinks best, even if it's politically unpopular...

Gov. Palin's responsibilities to the state and her national ambitions pull her in opposite directions. Before running for national office, Palin inspired bipartisan coalitions to pass ethics reform, fix the state's corruption-tainted oil taxes and create a competitive bidding process for issuing state incentives to pursue a North Slope gas pipeline. Once on the national stage, though, she won the adulation of Republican voters for her partisanship.

Ever since being chosen for the Republican ticket last summer, Gov. Palin has seemed more and more disengaged from the daily work of running state government. Given the continuing pull of national politics and a diminishing interest in governing Alaska, her decision to leave appears to be the right decision for Alaska.

BOTTOM LINE: The explanations are perplexing, but Alaska will be better off with a governor who wants to do the job.

From bi-partisan to out-of-step neocon. She screwed up: She blindly and weakly let a loser like Bill Kristol guide her career. Now she has none.

All we can say is...thanks.

Server Switch Today

Pardon our dust and our mess. We're making the big migration today, so most of the pages won't work until that's done. Thanks!

Hoffmania Proudly Announces the Return of...News

Iranians have returned to the streets, and the revolution continues.

Iranian police have fired tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators who defied government warnings that any fresh attempt at protests would be "smashed".

The marchers were heading towards Tehran University to commemorate the 10th anniversary of student unrest.

All gatherings have been banned in a crackdown on mass protests that erupted after the disputed election of 12 June.

The BBC's Jon Leyne says the opposition is trying to put momentum back into the campaign against the vote result.

They were organised to mark the anniversary of protests in 1999 between pro-reform activists and the loyalist Basij militia.

Small student-led groups have commemorated the event every year since then.

Between 200-300 protesters in Tehran chanted "Death to the dictator".

Nico Pitney's blog reports it's just a hair over "200-300 protesters" - it was more like well into the thousands. Pictures don't lie. AP still has headline-to-story ADD:

And Bush's nightmare continues in Iraq.

More than 50 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in Iraq in the worst day of violence since US forces withdrew from urban areas on 30 June.

The most lethal attack was in Talafar, near Mosul, where at least 34 people were killed and more than 60 injured in a double suicide bombing.

In Baghdad, two attacks at markets left at least 16 dead.

Several other people were killed in smaller attacks in the capital and in southern Kirkuk.

The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says the attacks raise questions about whether Iraqi forces are capable of guaranteeing security without US support.

Those who want to derail the handover from US to Iraqi forces now appear to be testing the ground to see how much room they have for manoeuvre, he adds.

Oh, Jeb...Wanna Talk About Campaign Promises?

In Esquire, Jeb Bush tries to talk about what's said on the campaign trail.

"Barack Obama would not have gotten elected if he'd let us in on his secret plan prior to the election. He would not have gotten elected if he'd said, 'My idea is to create a $1.8 trillion deficit for the next fiscal year. My idea is to spend $750 billion over the next ten years on a government-sponsored, government-subsidized health-care policy. My idea is to create a massive cap-and-trade system [based on the idea] that CO2 is [a] pollutant and we need to tax it in a massive way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.' Those ideas, which are now embedded in his budget, and the ideas in the stimulus package, weren't central in his campaign."

Forget the fact that all this was done to right this ship after W practically destroyed the country's financial infrastructure with his wars, deregulation, corporate kowtowing and tax cuts. If campaign ethics are such a big issue with this family, we can start with his father's "Read My Lips - No New Taxes" and his brother's "No Nation Building" and bullshit claims of being a champion of bipartisanship (not to mention this laundry list of saying anything to get elected).

A Bush shouldn't even be in any list of people who should make ANY criticism of campaign promises. So, Jeb...STFU.

Thrown Against the Wall

Didn't stick.

A couple of days ago, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) decided to go on a rant about how the media is glorifying a "lowlife" "peodphile" like Michael Jackson while soldiers, firefighters and cops go unnoticed.

Naturally when servicemen and women are dragged into the conversation to bolster the wingnuts' patriotic cred, everyone of 'em picks up the bone and gnaws it into powder. Hannity, Levin, and practically every other right wing screamer echoed the talking point yesterday.

But when CNBC's Donnie Deutsch tried it out on Ed Schultz's MSNBC show yesterday, Ed shot it down while it was still taxiing on the runway.

h/t Russ

NOW Will You Stop Giving Me Crap About Switching to Mac?

I do use both. But this will be a serious timesuck with one of them.

Microsoft warns of serious computer security hole

Microsoft warned users Monday about yet another serious security flaw related to its Internet Explorer browser for which there is no fix.

Security firm Symantec said the vulnerability, which affects PCs using Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating software, is already being taken advantage of by cybercriminals.

It can allow hackers to remotely take control of victims' machines. The victims don't need to do anything to get infected except visit websites infected with a tiny bit of code that taps into the security hole.

Stop calling me a computer elitist for dumping Windows for Mac. This - along with people who keep asking me which is the best spyware/anti-virus/firewall/spam/wormware/webfilter for Windows - is bullshit I truly don't need anymore.

Senator Al Franken

He was sworn in today, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee is in full scary mode:

With 60 senators, the Democrats have total control. No debate on their reckless liberal agenda. And no excuses for their failed policies. The Democrats own everything and have no one to blame now.

"No checks, no balances"? What the NRSC is essentially saying is the 40 they have in there are totally useless. Oh, and that Joe Lieberman is a liberal flamethrower.

Whatever they say.

#michaeljackson - You Think We're Going to Use Valuable Blog Space On This Media Circus?

You bet we are.

And As Long As We're On The #Palin Crazy Train...

I missed this guy! His well-reasoned opinions are the stuff of legend.